


The Lovers of Manhattan

by hollyandvice (hiasobi_writes)



Series: A Thousand and One Manhattan Lifetimes [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Age Difference, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Anal Sex, Canonical Character Death, Fix-It of Sorts, Immortal Steve Rogers, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Sex, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-28 02:28:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30132609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiasobi_writes/pseuds/hollyandvice
Summary: "You're here.""For as long as you want me to be, Tony."Tony shivers again. "You say that like it means something, Steve. Like you didn't up and run away the second thing got a little dicey with my folks.""It was more than that, Tony."For one single lifetime, Steve finds what he never thought he would get to have: a life with Tony. For one single lifetime, he has everything he doesn't deserve. For one single lifetime, he's home.He'll be damned if he doesn't do everything he can to keep this future.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: A Thousand and One Manhattan Lifetimes [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698925
Comments: 5
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there, and welcome to the next installment of this series!! It's my birthday today, so I'm having a hobbit birthday and giving you all the first chapter of arc three. I hope you all enjoy!!
> 
> \--------
> 
> This piece is the third of five fics in a very, very, _very_ long epic. It's already over 200k in my many Google Drive files and the end is only now starting to come into sight. Just warning you all. While the end of the epic series is hopeful, the end of this particular fic installment is not. I've listed the premise and some spoilers _INCLUDING POTENTIAL TRIGGERS_ for the series in the end notes of the first chapter as there are some things that don't show up here that will show up in later installments. Please take the time to check those over if you are concerned, because despite the hopeful ending (which may even be happy at the end of the day? Who knows, my Steve is a fickle bastard) there are plenty of dark twists and turns along the way.
> 
> If you are joining us after the whole series is posted, welcome to the breather in the middle! If you've made it this far into the ride, thank you so much for being with me! It means more than I can say, and I am so, so grateful. I need all the encouragement and support I can get (as my lovely cheer readers will attest) and I am thankful for whatever you are willing to provide.
> 
> This piece would not exist without the help of several people. First, my IRL friend A who indulged me by reading through some of the piece in its early stages and encouraged me to continue. My fandom friends Sly, Ali, and V.Mures, all of whom have encouraged me through Discord. My IRL writing friend B who always encourages me to improve my craft. My IRL writing friend M who just wants me to create things and encourages me to do so in whatever form that may take. Thank you to ishipallthings for a thorough beta job with an eye to continuity, courtesy of MTH.
> 
> And thank you to you, dear reader, for joining me on this journey yet again.
> 
> The series title is a play on _A Thousand and One Arabian Nights_ and the story title is a play on the story from _Arabian Nights_ entitled _The Lovers of Bassorah_.

He doesn't go to the Starks right away this time. He can't— _won't_ be Captain America this time around. He puts his mother's maiden name on the lease when he watches over Tony for those first few years of his life, and once Tony's old enough to need someone to look out for him, Steve uses whatever connections the Reality Stone can create to put him in a position to be offered a job as Tony's bodyguard.

Tony's just turned four, and his eyes are as bright and knowing as they've ever been. Affection swells in Steve’s chest as he looks down at the boy that has so much life still to live ahead of him. He meets Howard's eyes head on and answers all the questions right and within the day he's been accepted as Tony's new bodyguard. It's not ideal, of course, but the added security that he provides might be exactly what Tony needs to grow to adulthood with a little less overindulgence in his blood and a little more humility in his soul.

Not that Steve wants to humble Tony too much. The boy's going to be a genius. He deserves to hold himself in high esteem.

So Steve stays with Tony throughout his younger years, watching over him in school as he learns alongside dozens of other wealthy children. He endears himself to the other children's bodyguards and starts looking out for any who might be a bit loose-lipped or easy to turn. More than once he catches kidnapping attempts before they even have time to spring the trap, both those that have Tony as their target and those that do not. Steve knows he'soverprotective, but this is for Tony. He can't be bothered to keep himself in line any more than he already has. He looks out for every last one of those kids and the second anyone looks like they might want to harm any of them, Steve steps in and breaks a few wrists. And faces. Whatever.

And through it all, he gets to watch Tony grow up again. He knows this isn't going to go the way it had the first time around, knows that there will, at the very least, be fewer attempts on Tony's life with Steve at his side than there had been without. He's beautiful and brilliant and everything that Steve had always known he was but hasn't had the chance to see too clearly in months. Years, maybe. Time doesn't mean much to him anymore, and if that's all that it takes to save Tony's life — a little bit of Steve's time — then it's a price worth paying. 

It's more than worth it.

This time around, Steve learns more about being a bodyguard than he ever thought he would. There's more to it than just standing tall and keeping an eye out, Steve learned that a long time ago. But there's something about being at Tony's side that inspires a kind of hopeful want in his chest and makes him want to be a better man. Makes him a better man, for Tony's sake. 

Steve does everything he can to keep Tony safe. The one time it fails Steve uses the Reality stone to get him to Tony's side again and makes the kidnappers pay in ways he wouldn't have been proud of a few decades ago.

 _Don't watch_ , he remembers telling Tony. Remembers getting the boy out of there and to something resembling safety as quickly as he could so that he could put his fists through a few more faces. _Don't watch_.

He'd washed up after that particular incident before he'd gone to see Tony again, and Tony had been none the wiser about what had happened to his kidnappers. For his part, Steve just keeps doing what he's done for so long: bending the universe to his will to keep Tony safe.

That all works until Tony's in his first year of high school. That's when everything goes to hell.

* * *

Steve isn't sure he'll ever forget the look on Ms. Shane's face when she saw him pick up Tony from class for the first time. Isn't sure he'll ever forget the hard, knowing lines of her features. Isn't sure he'll ever be able to scrub clean the memory of the say she'd turned sharply on her heel and marched back into the building with intent. Later, he'll learn about the things Tony's been saying in class. Later, he'll learn about Ms. Shane's concerns based on how he'd "handled" Tony.

Right now, though, all that matters is the visit that comes after. All "Captain Byrne" this and "appropriate conduct" that and he'd spent the next three days trying to bury himself in the bottom of a bottle even though he knew it wouldn't work because anything had to be better than the outside world thinking he could do something like that to Tony.

He'd never thought that staying incognito this time around would come back to bite him in the ass, but it seems he was dead wrong about that. His only saving grace seems to be his military service and the fact that everyone else seems to be willing to give him some level of the benefit of the doubt, but it doesn't change the truth that, to a certain extent, they're right. He's started to see hints of the man that Tony's going to become as Tony hits his teens, and there's whispers of the beauty that Steve has known in every way possible. So the truth is, they're right.

He does want Tony for himself like that.

Not now — god, not now — but someday. Sometime. Some point many years down the line where he'll want to be able to turn to Tony and hold him in his arms and know that he's safe and whole and _Steve's_.

But he isn't.

Tony's his own man, or he will be one day, and Steve doesn't get to take that away from him. Doesn't get to guide his childhood so that he ends up where Steve wants him — so that he ends up in Steve's arms. Tony deserves to have whatever he wants in his life, in his future, deserves the opportunity to become the great man Steve knows he has the potential to be, and he deserves to have those things without suffering Steve's maladaptive coping strategy towards his seemingly inevitable death. Steve doesn't get to take any of that away from him. And yet.

And yet.

And yet would it be any better to leave him alone with Howard? To leave Tony, small and vulnerable and so damn bright at the whims of his father's alcohol cabinet? Tony deserves so much better, deserves so much more, and for Steve to even think about taking him away from that — taking that away from him — is utterly irresponsible. It's borderline cruel.

The alcohol does nothing to dampen the cold hand of shame that has wrapped itself around Steve's heart, to lessen the pain and guilt that this one slip-up has granted him. He can all but hear the Ancient One's quiet condemnation of his actions, her pity and her regret and her—

His glass shatters against the wall, the force of his throw nearly enough to turn it completely to a fine powder on the floor. He stares at the mess, wondering if he has the strength to get up and clean it right now, or if he's going to walk over it and let the shards cut the soles of his feet all to hell. If he's just going to wait until the next time Tony comes over and clean it up then.

If this is any way to live his life.

He's never wished for a taste of Thor's mead more than he does right now.

He aches to go to the Stark household, to assure Howard and Maria that he has no ill intent toward their son (lies), that he just wants to see him grow up to be the best man he can be (lies wrapped in truth), that he wants to know that Tony is safe and well-cared for (truth wrapped up in lies). That he sees Tony's potential (truth) and that all he wants is to nurture and foster that potential until Tony is everything Steve has always known him to be (and this is where the truth and the lies blur together, impossible to distinguish, because which Tony is he even talking about now? Which Tony is his?).

As black becomes navy becomes gray outside his window, Steve drags himself upright and changes into his running clothes. He has to do something — anything to drag the ache and the pain and the fear and the worry out from above his head. There's no way this visit is going to destroy him in his mission, but he'll be damned if he risks Tony's anything for his selfishness. Nothing matters except Tony's continued safety and survival, and if Steve is a detriment to that—

Well. He'd be remiss if he didn't repeat his experiment about what would happen if he got to Bucky before Bucky got to the Starks.

He runs thirty-two miles that morning, sweat sticking his shirt to his chest as he tries to think of the best way to leave Tony behind for now. He's not ready to leave this timeline yet — not ready to let it run its course — but he can see that he's overstepped and endangered Tony too soon now. He needs to leave him in the care of people that love him enough to see what even Steve couldn't see. That Steve has endangered him just as much as any extraterrestrial threat ever could.

But he won't abandon Tony outright.

"I have to go away for awhile" is such a weak excuse, one he knows Tony sees right through, but Steve won't back down. Not here. Not now. Not with this.

"But why?" Tony's so small as he stands before him, so small and desperate. The tears in his eyes are almost enough to hold Steve back, almost enough to have him stay. They're certainly enough for him to indulge and run his hand through Tony's hair, sweeping it away from his face. Howard's hard eyes are enough to remind him why he's doing this.

"I can't tell you, Tony. But I promise… I promise I'll come back when the time comes."

Tony just pouts. "When will that be?"

And this time it isn't Howard that Steve looks to, it's Edwin. The man that loves Tony as much as Steve himself — perhaps more — and there's nothing for it but to meet the man's eyes head-on and speak the truth that he knows. "You'll know."

Edwin's eyes go wide, understanding and disgust mixing on his face. It's clear he'd thought the worries Ms. Shane had brought to light were just that — worries — and had trusted his knowledge of Steve ofer those idle concerns. Now, Edwin knows there's a reason beyond simple suspicion to Steve's departure. It curdles something in Steve's gut, a kind of aching desperate need to be understood. But this isn't the time or the place, and if he has to corner Edwin to explain himself, then he will. But here? Now? With Tony standing before him, looking as sad and lost as Steve's ever seen him? It isn't the time.

Steve pulls Tony to him, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "You'll know, Tony."

When Steve pulls back, Tony's biting his lower lip, something in it trembling with the pain of separation. "Promise?"

"I promise."

It's not the worst promise he's ever made to Tony, but it's the worst promise he's made _this_ Tony, and somehow that's almost worse. To promise a child something he doesn't think he could ever promise the man himself. Something he's not even sure either of them deserve.

So Steve gets to his feet and promises himself he won't look down at Tony again. He hugs Maria and shakes Howard's hand, keeps up appearances for Tony's sake. Then he turns to Edwin, hand extended to shake his. Edwin's face gives away very little, but enough that Steve knows what he's thinking. With a swallow, Steve waits until Edwin accepts the outstretched hand and shakes it before he hauls him in for a quick hug.

"Just give me a chance, Edwin. Please."

He slips the letter into Edwin's jacket pocket, hoping he can feel the shift and weight of the tracer hidden in the envelope. Then he pulls back, nods once, and turns away. He thinks he can hear Tony crying out from somewhere behind him, but he ignores it as best he can, making his way to his bike. He won't look back. He won't look back. He won't look back.

And then, as he settles onto his bike, his resolve fades for just an instant. Just a moment and a breath that lets him look over his shoulder to meet Tony's eyes one last time.

Somehow Tony seems to understand everything Steve isn't saying in that look, and he pulls against his father's hold, as though if he runs fast enough he might be able to catch up to Steve.

Steve looks away before his resolve weakens any further. This isn't fair to Tony. None of this is fair to Tony, but Steve doesn't deserve to let his own shit fuck up Tony's life any more than it already has. He can learn to wait. And maybe, along the way, he can figure out how to spare Tony and Bucky the unnecessary pain that they experienced at Steve's hand in his time. 

Maybe, just maybe, it's time for Steve to stop wallowing in his own pain and do something right.

* * *

Seven years later when the tracer goes off in the middle of the night, Steve throws caution to the wind and heads back home for the first time in over a decade.

It's not that he thought Edwin wouldn't follow through, he'd been clear enough in the letter about his intent, about his history and his reasoning, but that didn't mean the man would believe him. Not everything — not the truth of the Stones, or the entirety of the future — but a portion of the truth. Things about time travel and Tony's future. And even if Edwin did believe him, that didn't mean that Tony would ask for the letter, or that he would want anything to do with Steve if Edwin ever did give him the letter. He'd spent the better part of those seven years believing he'd fucked everything up for him and Tony in this lifetime, but some part of him must have held onto the impossible hope regardless. He'd kept the tracer through all the long years and desperate, lonely nights while he sought out Bucky, and then, after finding him, helping him regain his sense of self-control. It had taken a great deal of convincing to ask T'Chaka for his assistance, but in the end, he had acquiesced. Bucky had begun to heal, slowly but surely, and Steve had found a way to be useful in this impossibly beautiful land that he had once called home. It wasn't his home, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it was the next best thing while Stevewaited for his heart's grace to be old enough to return his affections, if he wanted to.

A heavy price to pay, being away from home, but he had learned to live with it.

Six years had come and gone and there had been nothing from the tracer, nothing to let Steve know that there was someone on the other end who might still want him. It had ached down to his bones, but he'd accepted Tony's apparent rejection as best he could. It hurt, but it wasn't the end of the world. He could have a life here, watch over Tony from afar, help keep him from pain for as long as possible, at least once he was old enough.

And now this.

So here, now, with the tracer buzzing against his sternum and the coordinates already burned behind Steve's eyelids, there's nothing for it but to go to him. To go to Tony's side and be the kind of man he couldn't be seven years ago. The kind of man that Tony deserves to have at his side. The kind of man that deserved to be beside Tony. Everything he'd never let himself be, everything he'd never trusted he could be, and there's strength and power in that — more than he could ever have known.

It isn't Tony that the tracker leads him to. At least, not obviously. Not at first.

It's a desperate, desolate sort of stretch of road that the tracer brings him to, small and dark and private in a way that Steve could never have associated with Tony if he hadn't seen it himself on a tiny screen so many years ago. Something twists in his gut — how long has it been since he checked on Tony? How much has happened? — but he ignores it, scouring the stretch of roadside and trying not to let himself think that he's confirming what he never let himself confirm.

That, somehow, saving Bucky hadn't been enough this time around either.

Steve doesn't need to check to be certain that the crash hadn't been enough to destroy the tracer. There might even be a chance that Steve himself knows more than Tony at this moment about the crash. A chance that he's still off in his Master's level classes taking the world by storm while Steve stands at the roadside amid flashing red and blue lights and a totaled vehicle. He shouldn't be the first of the two of them to know but somehow, some way, Steve knows that he is.

This isn't what he meant to happen. This isn't how it was supposed to go down. But then, maybe this is what he deserves for abandoning Tony so long ago. Maybe this is his due.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve doesn't go to Tony right away. He waits until the funeral, watching from across the cemetery. Through it all Tony stands, motionless and expressionless in a way that Steve has only seen in him a few times. This Tony stands as a silent sentinel at Stane's side. This is their burden to bear, not Steve's, but there can be no doubting that this is the reality that Steve has wrought for Tony. That by leaving his side he has condemned him to yet another life without Howard and Maria. If Steve had only stayed close—

But there was no way he could have prevented this. No way he could have stood at Tony's side and protected him from death and pain and loss the way he wanted to. This — the Starks' deaths — has seemed to be a fixed point in every iteration of Tony's life that Steve has lived through, and there's nothing for it but to lean into it and let it run its course. And if it leads him back to Tony's side, then he won't be grateful, but he will honor the kindness that has come despite the darkness.

He approaches Tony near the end of the line of mourners, holding a hand out to shake. "My condolences."

Tony blinks before his eyes flash bright with knowing at the sound of Steve's voice. He swallows and nods once, taking Steve's hand and shaking it firmly.

The keycard he slips into Steve's palm can't be accidental.

Steve swallows down the hope in his chest and nods in return before he steps away from the line of mourners. Some small part of his brain wonders how long Tony had held that keycard against his wrist, what he'd been waiting to see in the line of mourners, but it's a question only Tony can answer, and one that Steve can ask him when he meets him at the hotel.

He waits until the last of the mourners have cleared out and watches Tony get into the car with Stane before he takes his bike to the hotel listed on the paper sleeve wrapped around the card. It settles something in Steve's chest to know that this is the right place, that this is where he's supposed to be, that there's nothing but Tony in his mind as he huddles under the awning above the entry to the hotel. He's not ready to go inside — not yet — taking a few minutes to calm his racing heart first.

He doesn't wait outside until the car pulls up with Tony and Stane. Instead he watches for their car through the window of the 19th floor, wondering how long Stane will keep Tony out. How many drinks he'll ply Tony with. It's an aching question that leaves him hollow and uncertain, feeling the years and the distance between him and Tony all the more acutely for their closeness in this moment. He doesn't know much about Stane — he'd kept to the business side of things with SI in the lifetime where Steve has been close enough to Tony to know him — but he has often been something of a father figure to Tony in those lives. One more loss to weigh upon Tony's soul, taken from him around the time that Tony had become Iron Man. The closeness between the two seems all the more acute here and now, perhaps because Steve wasn't around to be one more adult figure in Tony's young life.

Whatever the reason, Stane was the one Tony chose after the funeral today, and Steve can't fault him for that in the least. Stane has been at Tony's side while Steve has been hiding, waiting for the boy he might once have raised to grow into the man that he's loved for so long. And grow he has, though not completely to the man that Steve once knew. Close, but not yet there.

So Steve clings to his memories and to the knowledge that Tony had invited him here and hopes against hope that it means something to Tony. That he means something to Tony. That he's not just a reminder of days past and a way to throw Steve's betrayal back into his face so many years later. It would be more like Tony than Steve feels comfortable admitting and would certainly not be undeserved, but the thought still hurts, an aching behind his sternum as he finally sees the car pull up in front of the hotel. The driver steps out first, opening the door first for Stane, then for Tony, as the pair of them make their way up to the entrance of the hotel. Steve ducks away from the window when Tony looks up, as though he might be able to see Steve. It's irrational and unreasonable, but the fear settles in Steve's stomach and he tucks himself away down the hall toward Tony's room.

Steve is careful to stay out of the direct line of sight of the doorway when he makes his way inside, more out of fear that Stane might follow Tony in and take this away from them both than any sort of propriety. When the wait grows long and lingering, Steve steps into the ensuite to splash water over his face and throat. There's so much nervousness and tension running in his veins that he can't quite find it in him to do anything else for fear that Tony might see. That Tony might know. Though what, exactly, he's afraid of Tony knowing is beyond him.

Steve shuts off the water. The door clicks open. Steve holds his breath, waiting for the sound of Stane's voice, but it doesn't come. Instead Tony sighs something heavy, and Steve hears the bed move as though Tony has sat down on it. He steps away and out of the ensuite, taking the space of a breath to marvel at Tony, his poise and presence reduced to nothing more than hunched shoulders and an undone tie splayed over his palm. Steve feels woefully inadequate in that moment, little more than a memory of Tony's childhood, little more than the remnants of a life Tony has clearly moved past. Steve has no right to be here. What the hell had he been thinking, coming at a moment's notice with nothing but the insistent beeping of a tracer to bring him here?

But Tony had given him the key.

Steve runs the pad of his finger over the edge of the card in his pocket, letting the pressure center him. He stands up a little taller and steps into the bedroom.

There's the space of a breath where Steve thinks Natasha has trained him too well. Where he's moved too quietly and Tony had missed the sound of his shoes on the carpet. Then he catches the tightening of Tony's shoulders, the slight way he shifts but doesn't quite look up. It's enough to have Steve realizing Tony's waiting for something.

Steve gives it to him.

"Tony?"

Steve hears the way Tony's breath catches on the sound of his name. When he looks up at Steve, there's a kind of wide-eyed hope in his eyes that catches Steve off guard. He'd imagined that his departure hurt Tony, and he'd simultaneously hoped it wasn't bad at all and was utterly devastating for Tony through his young life. It wasn't one of his prouder moments, those thoughts that losing him had been as difficult for Tony as it had been for Steve himself. He hadn't wanted that for Tony, not really, but he hadn't wanted to be alone in his pain. He's always been a selfish man, always wanted everything he could possibly have to make the world right and good and his, but this had been one of his most selfish moments of all. Wishing pain on the man he loved is not something he thinks he'll ever forget. 

Steve swallows and tries to find a smile. "Hi."

Tony jerks to his feet, his body halfway across the room toward Steve before he seems to remember himself. "Hi."

Steve closes the remaining distance, leaving a respectable space between them as he stands before Tony. For all that his fingers twitch and tremble, he doesn't reach to close the space. He can't find the words to say what he wants to say. _I'm sorry for your loss_ seems inadequate. _I missed you_ rings hollow. _Are you alright_ is more than he feels safe asking. So he lets the silence hang for longer than he should, all his faults splayed out before him in the air he breathes out.

"Steve." The sound of his name in Tony's voice is the salvation Steve hadn't thought he deserved. The lack of a qualifier — not "Uncle" Steve or anything else he'd been called in the singular lifetime where he's gone back to the 1970s — makes the name all the more powerful, all the more resonant and aching in his chest.

All he can do is nod.

Tony looks down as he reaches his fingers out, ghosting them over the seam of Steve's sleeve. Steve swallows, the whisper of a touch more tempting, more tantalizing, more alluring than anything else Tony could have done. "It's really you."

"It's really me."

Tony closes his eyes and shivers. "I was…. I was so sure I'd imagined it. That you weren't who I thought you were. That you—" He shakes his head. "I guess it doesn't matter, now. You're here, and that's what matters." Tony pitches forward, his forehead landing in the middle of Steve's chest. "You're here."

"For as long as you want me to be, Tony."

Tony shivers again. "You say that like it means something, Steve. Like you didn't up and run away the second thing got a little dicey with my folks."

"It was more than that, Tony."

"What, just because they thought you were some sort of—"

"Don't say it, Tony. Please."

Tony pulls back at the ache in Steve's words as though burned. "You aren't. Are you?"

Steve forces himself to go on meeting Tony's eyes. Looking away would be more damning than anything else he could do. "The short version of it is that you're it for me, Tony. You're it for me."

"What, you mean like some sort of soulmate bullshit?" Tony shakes his head. "Don't lie to me Steve."

"The truth is even stranger."

Tony laughs, and it's a bitter, brittle sound that Steve's heard more than once on this day in a different lifetime. Steve flinches. "Try me."

Steve licks his lips, the temptation almost too much to bear. "You've had a long day, Tony." He takes a step forward. "Are you sure—"

Tony steps back. "Don't stand there and try to coddle me if you won't trust me with the truth."

Steve stands there, hands outstretched, and tries to place this Tony in the line of Tonys he's known. Timeline-wise, he must be in grad school. Probably has already tinkered with ideas and theories that would still go over Steve's head. It's possible the truth won't be too much for Tony to handle, and yet—

"Are you going to throw me out if you don't like what I say?"

"Maybe. But I'm sure as shit gonna throw you out if you don't say anything."

Steve closes his eyes and licks his lips again. "I'm from the future."

"Bullshit."

"You developed a device that was capable of time travel, and I used it to come back in time."

"So that you could, what? Turn into a pedo?"

Steve flinches. "I just wanted to protect you."

"Yeah? From what? Did my parents die in that timeline too?" Steve meets Tony's eyes head-on and knows he'll know the answer from his expression alone. "And you didn't even try to do anything to stop it?"

"I did."

"Which seems to have worked so damn well."

Steve tries not to sigh. "So far it's been a fixed point."

"Convenient," Tony says with a snort. He crosses his arms and looks away.

"I tried, Tony. I neutralized the person that murdered them, Tony, but apparently that didn't work. I assumed Peggy took my words to heart about HYDRA, but—"

"Murdered?"

Steve winces at the broken sound in Tony's voice. "Tony—"

"It was a car accident. It— It was an accident."

Steve shakes his head and takes half a step toward Tony. An invitation without being an ultimatum. "It wasn't. Your father—"

Tony claps his hands over his ears. "Stop." Steve freezes, hands half-outstretched to Tony. "Stop it. I buried my parents this morning, Steve, don't— Don't—"

Steve nods. "Alright. I won't. Not until you want me to."

Tony sobs. "Steve, I— You were gone. You were _gone_ and I was supposed to just… what? Be okay with that?"

"I had no choice, Tony. At least," he adds at Tony's brittle laugh, "not one that I could live with."

"You say you came back to protect me. You left me alone with him. Alone with both of them. You call that protecting?"

Steve's breath catches. "Tony—"

"You don't know what it was like after you left, do you? You have no idea."

"I have some."

"Not enough of one, evidently." There's a snarl in Tony's voice. "You seem to think you can just walk in here with a smile on your face and make everything better. Make everything okay."

"It's not like that. I just want to be here for you, Tony. I just want to be in your life." For all that his fingertips tingle with the need to touch, Steve doesn't let himself reach for Tony.

Tony shakes his head. "Don't, Steve. You said it yourself, you came here with a motive — albeit one I'm not entirely sure I buy — and you expect me to just believe that? I can't, Steve. Not after what you did."

That stops Steve short. "What I did?"

"You walked out. Completely unprovoked. You left me with Howard, the one person you'd always promised me would never hurt me. You left me with him and you know what the first thing he did was?" Steve shakes his head, not wanting to hear but knowing he has no choice. "He told me it was my fault you'd gone. That I was the reason you'd disappeared. And the first thing you say when you come back was that he was right. You expect me to just go right back to that little boy you doted on for years? I'm not a child, Steve. I haven't been in years."

Steve wants to disagree, wants to deny and insist that nineteen is still little more than a child, but he knows Tony has a point. He's lived more in this last week than most children do, and had lived through so much more even before that. Tony isn't a child. He'd never had the childhood he deserved. "I know."

"Then don't treat me like one."

"I don't want to."

"Then why are you?"

"I'm not trying to treat you like a child, Tony. Never like a child. Just like someone I want to keep safe. Someone I want to protect. I want to be a friend to you, Tony. That means so much more to me than I can possibly say. I just want you to be safe. I don't mean to treat you like a child, but I know it can feel that way. Bucky's said the same thing in more than one lifetime."

Tony's brow furrows at the slip, but he seems to shake it off well enough. "Then why do you do it?"

"Because even with all I know and all I've done, this is the one thing I can't seem to get right. Trusting the people I love not to get hurt. Everyone I've ever gotten involved with, with the possible exception of Natasha, has had to deal with me being overbearing and overprotective. It's the one thing I can never seem to get right." Steve's fingers ache to reach out for Tony, but he doesn't let himself do so. There's a gulf between them, and he can't be the one to bridge it. "But if you can see past my faults and flaws and trust that the person underneath all the mistakes is worth it, I swear, Tony, I'll do whatever it takes to keep you whole and happy. I'll do whatever it takes to make this up to you. I swear."

Tony swallows, the broken hope in his eyes piecing itself together as Steve watches. "I just wanted you here, Steve."

"I know."

"I just wanted someone that loved me for me."

Steve closes his eyes. "I know.

"That's all I wanted, Steve."

Steve nods, feeling the ache in his chest. He'd known it all along, known that Tony only wanted someone at his side. He'd known, and he'd run away for the exact same reason he'd always run away before. Not because he didn't trust Tony, but because he didn't trust himself. "I know."

There's a moment where Tony doesn't speak. Steve doesn't open his eyes to look, lets himself revel in the pain and struggle that rests underneath his bones. Then there's a touch at his shoulder. Steve takes a sharp breath and lets himself look down at Tony. Tony slides his hand along the line of Steve's shoulder to rest against the side of his neck.

In another lifetime, with metal against his throat instead of skin, Steve might have flinched away. Might have run and hid from the reality of what Tony's touch meant. But here and now, Steve knows this is an act of trust. Of honest communication. Of all the grief Tony has felt for the last seven years laid aside and torn asunder by the touch of skin on skin.

Steve can't breathe.

"I know, Steve."

Steve blinks.

"I know that all this time you were just trying to keep me safe. And I won't say that it's not creepy that you wanted to get with me when I was a kid. Because it is."

"Tony—"

"But I think we both know that you had a reason for that. One you may not be able to tell me, but a reason nonetheless. And the most important part is that you came back."

Steve swallows, searching for words he can't find.

"I know that all you wanted was to keep me safe, Steve, and I know that it's more than you thought you would get, for whatever reason. But I'm here, Steve. Here and whole and alive. And if I'm going to get through this in one piece, it's not going to be alone and it sure as shit isn't going to be without you."

Steve closes his eyes. Tony runs his hand up to cup Steve's cheek.

"So come on, dumbass. Do what you've wanted to do for ages."

Steve chuckles. "You know it's not like that, Tony."

Tony laughs in return. "Don't care. Kiss me, Steve."

Smile on his lips and heart in his throat, Steve leans down and presses his lips to Tony's. It's exactly what he thought it would be. Different than any kiss Tony has given him in any other lifetime, different than the care and ease they might once have had before, but still Tony. There's an edge of experience, an edge of knowing under Tony's skin, and it twists Steve up inside to know that he left Tony alone for so long. That he let whatever Howard was and whatever Howard did be all that Tony had. He wants to ask, wants to know, wants to dig deep inside Tony's soul and scoop out all the pain his departure left behind and let Tony revel in what it is to be loved.

But that isn't his place or his right or his decision. All he has right now is what Tony will give him, and he will take that gladly. He takes Tony's touch and his kiss and lets it set his soul to rights in the easy, lingering way that only Tony can. Steve reaches up, cupping the side of Tony's throat, tilting his head back to deepen the kiss. Tony parts his lips, and Steve feels the kind of love and acceptance that he never thought he would deserve again. Not in this lifetime.

Tony pulls back, and before he can say anything, Steve's pressing kisses to the line of his throat. Tony's free hand comes up to grip at the back of Steve's shirt. Steve smiles against his skin, The sound of Tony panting against his ear driving him forward.

When his lips come to rest against the collar of Tony's shirt, Steve pauses. His mind catches up with the moment, and his mind fills with the memory of what this day is for Tony. He pulls back far enough to lean his forehead against Tony's shoulder, his own hands lowering to rest against Tony's hips.

"Steve?"

Steve smiles at the gentle note in Tony's voice. The expression hurts. "You've had a long day."

Tony's fingers tighten in Steve's shirt at the implication. He doesn't say anything.

"Let's just rest tonight. Okay?"

Tony's silence weighs heavy on Steve's soul, but he'd rather have nothing tonight and all of Tony for the rest of their lives than have a piece of him tonight and lose him forever as a result. Tony turns and kisses Steve's temple. "Alright."

Steve lets out the breath he was holding and tightens his grip on Tony's hips. "Thank you."

Tony runs his hand up to cup the back of Steve's neck. Steve feels somehow tiny in Tony's grip, nothing like the mountain of a man he knows he is. He kisses Steve's temple again, lips lingering against the skin this time. "Let's go to bed."

It's an intimate dance, undressing in Tony's bedroom. Intimate and unendingly familiar. Steve has lived countless lives at Tony's side, but nothing about being around him in this way gets any less powerful. Tony moves through the room with all the ease Steve knows he has, letting a hand slide along the line of Steve's arm as he passes, hip checking him out of the way when they brush their teeth. Steve rolls his eyes at each touch, but his heart warms at the same time. Tony has always drawn him in impossibly and inexorably, and Steve long gave up the fight against Tony's pull.

It isn't until Tony drags Steve into bed with him that he shows his first sign of weakness. He pulls Steve close behind him, nestling in his embrace. "Tell me I'll be okay."

Steve doesn't hesitate. "You'll be okay."

Tony's laugh is choked and bitter. "You can't know that."

"I can." Steve kisses the back of Tony's neck. "I do."

"How?"

"Secret time-traveling powers."

Tony's second laugh sounds more like a sob. "Steve."

"Do you trust me?"

Tony rests his arm over Steve's where it's wrapped around his chest, palm over his sternum. "Always."

"Then trust me in this. You're going to be okay."

Tony stays quiet. Then he turns his head and kisses Steve's lips. "Promise?"

"I promise."

Tony nods. He turns his head back and nestles deeper into Steve's arms. "Then I believe you."

Steve closes his eyes. They're both going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> !!!!----SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES BELOW----!!!!
> 
> This series includes:  
> \- **Death** in the form of Tony dying a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Like a thousand times a lot (hence the series title). If you'd like to have specifics on any of the deaths, feel free to shoot me a message on [tumblr](https://hollyandvice.tumblr.com/ask) or hit me up on Discord (holly#0515)  
> \- **Murder** in the form of Steve killing a past version of himself while in a grief rage.  
> \- **Underage** in the form of a 17 year-old Tony getting with a vaguely immortal Steve.  
> \- **Age Difference** in the form of Steve going back in time to protect little!Tony after being married to adult!Tony in a previous lifetime. Steve wisely fucks off to the other side of the planet for a few years but he does come back when Tony is nineteen and they do get married. Nothin untoward happens when Tony is underage.  
> \- **Canon-typical off-screen torture**.  
> \- Some sort of **relationship negotiations** between Steve, Tony, and Pepper. As I am currently over 100k words out from writing that particular encounter, I can't tell you what that will look like. I will update here as soon as I know.
> 
> I may be forgetting things. I've hit everything that I know is going to be in this series at this point, but, as I said, I'm not done yet, so there may be things that will pop up that I haven't realized. I will update here if anything changes and be sure to put any relevant info at the top of any chapter or installment that has new warnings. Please take care of you, though, and stay safe!!


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